Since I found awards dinners about as much fun as appendicitis, Nolan said he’d understand if I stayed home, but I didn’t want to tarnish his joy.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, but everyone knew I was lying. My limit was one gathering per month, and the wedding had already drained my social battery for the quarter.
Since I’d endured an evening at the Making a Difference Awards with Brax in January, he’d volunteered himself and Indi to join us. Then he rallied the troops and found eight willing victims to fill the other seats—Chase, Jay, Barbie, Jez, Zach, Ari, Violet, and Dawson.
Of course, nothing ever ran smoothly, so Spider replaced Jez after Jez had to go delete someone, and Brax roped in his old college buddy Lucas after Zach landed a last-minute photoshoot. All twelve seats would be filled tonight; that was the important thing. I took a dose of Nolan’s Xanax—which he rarely used anymore, incidentally—and squeezed myself into a party dress. The limo driver would wait outside the hotel so we could make a quick escape after dessert.
Three hours, and it would all be over.
Three minutes, and the evening turned to shit. Because that was when my parents walked in.
Chase saw them first and said, “Oh, hell.”
“What?” Jay asked, turning. “Oh, fuck.”
I followed their line of sight, and my guts seized. Mom was wearing a little black dress and a big, fake smile as she walked with her arm looped through Dad’s, and he was playing the jovial businessman, pausing to clap one acquaintance on the back and shake hands with another. Ugh. What were they doing here? Dad should be paying down his credit card debt, not splashing out five hundred bucks a head on dinner. How did mediocre men always manage to fail upward?
“Fuck my life,” Nolan muttered, but he was looking in a different direction than everyone else. Why was he looking in a different direction? I swivelled in my seat and realised we had two problems instead of one. Lisanne Fulton trailed an older, heavyset man to a seat across the room, and her gaze was locked on Nolan.
“This should be fun,” Barbie said with a grin. “Didn’t you check the guest list?”
A fair question, because I always checked the guest list. But this time, I’d dropped the ball, and the ball turned out to be an RPG.
“No, because I was too busy worrying about my freaking wedding.”
“I swear I didn’t know she was going to be here,” Nolan said.
“I don’t care about Lisanne,” I assured him.
“Then why…?”
Chase filled him in. “Her parents are here.”
“What? Where?”
“At your six o’clock. Don’t turn around and stare.”
“We should leave. Alexa, you want to leave?”
Jay answered for me. “Absolutely not. This is your night, so fuck them all.”
“Not Lisanne,” Brax put in. “Nolan already tried that, and it didn’t work out so well.”
“Or Alexa’s parents,” Chase said. “Damn, I need to take a flamethrower to that image.”
I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in years, but now I felt the old familiar panic creeping up on me like a plague of locusts nibbling at my sanity. You’re not good enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough. On instinct, I grabbed Nolan’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“I won’t let them near you,” he promised.
“I have a gun,” Barbie said. “Just say—” Then she remembered Lucas and Violet. “Just joking. Clearly, I’m joking.”
I’d found myself at another crossroads. Maybe the most daunting intersection of my life. I could let the panic overwhelm me, or I could run, and if I took either of those options, then my parents would win. Or I could sit tight and weather the storm. I was the CTO of a successful company, a billionaire, a wife, a friend, a philanthropist, an online avenger, and I even had a part share in a dog. My mom was a needy bitch, and my dad had failed at life in general and fatherhood in particular. They were nothing. Why should I be the one to leave?
“I’m staying.”
Brax clapped me on the shoulder. “Attagirl.”
“Ow.”
